Eastern Coyote - Photo by Steve Byland
You may have heard by now of the tragic death of Canadian singer-songwriter Taylor Mitchell last week, killed by coyotes while solo hiking in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia. As is typical after these types of incidents, wildlife biologists and public land managers are scrambling to find any reason why the animals attacked other than the obvious one — that they were hungry and looking for food. In this typical article, the Chronicle Herald authors quote Jon Way, said to have studied coyotes for 12 years, and who runs Eastern Coyote Research in Massachusetts:
“I don’t think they regard people, even kids, as an opportunity for a food source, so this is certainly an abnormal attack,” Mr. Way said. “They certainly are not like (big) cats that regard people as food, they just don’t do that.”
I am always baffled at biologists who are baffled when larger predators attack and even kill people. Mr. Way ought to know that at least one child has been killed by a coyote, and there have been numerous attacks by coyotes on children as well as adults (including an attack on two boys right here in Bellevue in 2006).
One of the reasons I started BEARS and Other Top Predators magazine 11 years ago was that I didn’t trust the information about animal attacks that I was getting from people who should know better — from public land managers and publicly funded wildlife biologists. For example, when we first started the magazine, many park rangers and even wildlife PhDs told us that there has never been a documented fatal killing of a human by a wolf. It was repeated like a mantra. This didn’t ring true, especially since it is common knowledge that dogs sometimes kill humans. As it turned out, there are numerous documented cases of wolves preying on humans, including some in North America in the last two decades.
Why would someone who has responsibility for public safety ignore evidence that may help people be safer? No question there is a a preservationist motive involved. They don’t want people to destroy either individual animals or the species. But I share the preservationist ethic and I still want to know what my real risk is when I go into the backcountry.
I think there more at work here. I think there is a tendency with some people, more prevalent on the left side of the political spectrum, to be wishful about the world, to minimize or ignore evidence that the world is hasher than we would like, whether it be about dangerous animals (as in this case), dangerous humans (e.g., ignoring the efficacy of concealed carry laws) or dangerous regimes (e.g., holding fruitless talks while Iran builds nuclear weapon capability).
More by Carter Mackley on this and other animal attacks at FindingWilderness.com.